HOW TO ACT?
edited by La Criée Centre for Contemporary Art
<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=112867&N=9722&L=11617&F=H>www.criee.org<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=112867&N=9722&L=9579&F=H>
<http://interspire.e-flux.com/link.php?M=112867&N=9722&L=9579&F=H>www.act-democracy.eu
Contemporary art in its ability to think, invent
and represent the democratic changes of Europe in
an era of globalisation. This is a joint
laboratory for inventive and collaborative
democratic building.
Released via Onomatopee project space and publisher, Eindhoven (NL)
Edited by La Criée Centre for Contemporary Art, Rennes (FR)
September 2014, English
160 x 230 mm, 504 PP, 397 b&w and color, softcover
Design by Pierre Martin Vielcazat
HOW TO ACT? is a dynamic extension of the A.C.T. Democ[k]racy project.
Via a cross-European exchange of artworks,
artists, researchers and students, Art
Cooperation Transmission (A.C.T.) Democ[k]racy
promotes contemporary art in its ability to
think, invent and represent the democratic
changes of Europe in an era of globalisation. It
is a joint laboratory and a factory for inventive
and collaborative democratic building.
In France, Romania, Serbia and The Netherlands,
nine partner institutions organised a
cross-fertilisation trhough students' and
artists' residencies, exhibitions and seminars.
Those engaging explored fields of thought and
action related to art and democracy with a
particular focus on education, poetics, urbanism
and freedom. They experienced the unity and the
heterogeneity of "Europe"; they acquired (and
lost) some certainties about democracy, art,
European identity and relations. The project
gathered multifocal contributions by artists,
philosophers, sociologists, poets, architects,
urbanists, writers, art critics, historians, etc.
that they wished to share.
HOW TO ACT? post-produces this experience:
building upon the exhibitions, informing in the
spin-off of the conferences and fostering
exchange through the dynamics of the residences.
The result is a set of answers and an impetus to
act. ACTors' testimonies, critical and poetic
texts, political cartoons, photography and more
provide a retrospective/prospective reading of
all activities that took concrete form during the
two years of the project. They open up a world of
possibilities for artistic and civil acts.
Contributors: Dominique Abensour, Maziar
Afrassiabi, Bearboz, Julien Berthier, Matthijs
Bosman, Joost de Bloois, Paul de Bruyne, Sylvaine
Bulle, George Dupin, Larys Frogier, Christophe
Hanna, Joop Hazenberg, Bogdan Iacob, Ivana
Ivkoviç, Charlie Jeffery, Frank Keizer, Sarah
van Lamsweerde, Paul de Lanzac, Fancois Lombarts,
Freek Lomme, Aleksandar Maçaev, Ciprian
Mures¸an, Tanja Ostojiç, Dan Perjovschi, Darinka
Pop Mitiç, Mara Ratiu, Tomas Schats, Dubravka
Sekuliç, Anca Simionca, Biljana Srbljanoviç,
Marko Stamenkoviç, István Szakáts, Raa
Todosijeviç, Samuel Vriezen, Emmanuel Wallon,
Jozua Zaagman, Joëlle Zask, etc.
The A.C.T. Democ[k]racy agenda
Because the withdrawal into separatist identities
in many European countries is an alarming symptom
of a crisis of democracy within Europe;
because Europe is now reaching the limits of an
economic model that is resulting in brutal social
fragmentation and deepening inequalities among
individuals and countries;
because the conditions required for the exercise
of democracy are now being suffocated by
obsolescent administrative, legislative and
communicative structures;
because the critical, educational and creative
dimensions of art are fundamental conditions to
the exercise of democracy;
because in an era of globalisation, we believe
that interrelation between the commonplace and
the singular should cultivate difference,
discontinuity and contradiction as the basis of
our representations of reality,
Faced with the separatistism of the various
European identities, we believe that the ongoing
progress of European democracies in the era of
globalisation depends on our ability to cultivate
a continuous, inter-penetrable, porous dynamic
with respect to otherness amongst neighbours. In
the face of critical, educational and creative
challenges, we believe that art has the capacity
to bring historic, cultural and social elements
into relationship with each other in order to
generate unpredictable representations,
unexpected encounters and innovative creations.
Amid an over-administrated and decreasingly
inventive culture, we believe that the vitality
of contemporary creativity involves the constant
cultivation of a dynamic that encompasses
tension, transformation and the invention of
cultural and artistic projects.
Through our discussions and the action we took,
we made our small and bottom-up contribution to
the building of the Europe of democracies to
which we are firmly committed. In practical terms
we offered the chance-locally, multi-nationally
and internationally-to discover and connect
artists and artworks. We offered artists,
students and researchers the chance to address
new contexts and reflect together on the meaning
of art and democracy. Our response to the retreat
into identity was simple: the discovery of Others
and their art, ideas and ways of working. We
experienced the feeling of belonging to Europe in
all its diversity and contradiction, driven by a
conscious, necessary sense of shared difference.
In this way we came up with a constructive
"multifocalism," at once political and poetic,
utopian and critical, pragmatic and fanciful.
-Sophie Kaplan, Director, La Criée centre for contemporary art
The A.C.T. project partners
La Criée Centre for Contemporary Art, Rennes, France
AltArt Foundation, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Cultural Centre of Belgrade, Serbia
Onomatopee project-space, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
École européenne supérieure d'art de Bretagne, Rennes, France
University of Art and Design, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Mains d'uvres, Saint-Ouen, France
AKV St. Joost, 's-Hertogenbosch/Breda, The Netherlands
Fabrica de Pensule, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
With the support of the Culture programme of the European Union.